


The Gryffindor Courage.

by AKZoey



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Boys In Love, Bullying, Fluff and Angst, Good Severus Snape, Idiots in Love, James Potter Being an Asshole, Love Confessions, Love/Hate, M/M, Minor James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Minor Sirius Black/Remus Lupin, Not Actually Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 15:11:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18075785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AKZoey/pseuds/AKZoey
Summary: "As?" I asked, no hoping to have a good answer. "How can I go and talk ...?"Remus shrugged and laughed."Just go, open your mouth and say the words" he then paused before completing in a playful tone. "You know ... The Gryffindor courage."It was my turn to open a weak smile toward her. Remus was trying his best, but by then there was nothing that could save me."It's ..." I muttered with dismay. "The Gryffindor courage."





	The Gryffindor Courage.

 

_Stay stay_

_Because all my life I felt like this_

_But I could never find the words to say_

_Stay stay_

 

 

I looked in the mirror for the fourteenth time that afternoon. I was so neat, wearing a black suit that really made me look like someone important, except for the hair. The hair, the only part of my body that I could not fix at all, was also the only part that portrayed my state of mind. I felt a mess.

"Is ready?" Sirius Black asked no more than ten minutes before leaving for the Common Room. His voice was debauched. "You're really looking forward to this prom, are not you?"

Prom. Prom.

It was true that I had finished packing an hour earlier. But it was not the prom that made me anxious.

Luckily, Sirius had stayed in the dorm for a few minutes before heading out. Peter was not there either; therefore, there, with me, had only been Remus Lupine.

Remus did not know my true situation. In fact, none of them knew. But of all my friends, he was the most observant. He had been watching me since I had finished changing; since I had been walking in circles over and over again, wavering between moments when I was looking at myself in the mirror. When they all left the room, he finally spoke to me.

"Are you going to talk to him?"

The question struck me. Remus did know? I looked at him through the reflection of the mirror, no courage to respond.

"Do not worry," Remus explained. "Sirius and Peter do not know."

"And how do you know?"

Remus opened a restrained smile and looked away in some corner, thoughtful.

"You and Sirius are very similar at times. When try to get someone's attention, you two choose the wrong methods."

Wrong methods. I also turned my eyes to the ground. I kept them there.

I he had to act, but I did not have the courage. The Marauder Map, still although incomplete already identified Severus Snape's position at Hogwarts, was only a few steps away.

"If you're thinking of going to talk to him, it's the right thing to do."

"As?" I asked, no hoping to have a good answer. "How can I go and talk ...?"

Remus shrugged and laughed.

"Just go, open your mouth and say the words" he then paused before completing in a playful tone. "You know ... The Gryffindor courage."

It was my turn to open a weak smile toward her. Remus was trying his best, but by then there was nothing that could save me.

"It's ..." I muttered with dismay. "The Gryffindor courage."

I took a last breath, staring again at my reflection in the mirror. How had I sunk so much? How had come to such a deplorable situation?

Without further delaying what would have to be done, I took the Marauder's Map and identified the position of Ranhoso: the Clock Tower Courtyard. What was he doing there?  
I fixed it my tie for the twentieth time and went out, looking for him. As I walked down the enormous stairs, I tried to remember the succession of mistakes I had made with Snape, seeking a possibility of approach after so many jokes and humiliations. For five years, I had been a complete idiot.

It was common for boys my age to need a little attention; It was not uncommon for me to be so thirsty for her. Since I arrived at Hogwarts, my main goal had become to get the attention of others; and I even became good at it.

Our group consisted of four people, one of whom - Sirius Black - was the one who had fed my hatred for the Slytherins early. He had fed him on the Hogwarts Express when we first met; even before we were classified as Gryffindors.

"Accept everything except Slytherin," he said, while the rest of the group stared at him with surprised eyes. "If put me as a Slytherin, I swear I'm going to burn every classroom in this school."

His transgressive stance won us over at first sight. All three lost pre-teenagers they needed at life was a reason to be revolted. We, of course, revolted against the group of people we would call "snakes." And Severus Snape, my favorite snake since the first exchange of glances, was the perfect embodiment of a Slytherin. The only problem - and also the reason having become my favorite prey - was a very simple fact: he did not give me what I was looking for.

Of all the people at Hogwarts, Severus it was despised me the most. No Slytherin sympathized with our group, but his disdain was visible by the look. when, was not looking at us as if we were slugs crossing your path, he simply ignored us.  
And I could tolerate everything but reproach; could tolerate anything but absolute indifference. So as soon as my attention fell on Snape and I saw his potential, all my efforts were made to ridicule him until he sketched a minimum of reaction. I cursed him, I chased him, all so that he would finally realize my presence. But it was in vain.

Even in the face of my cruellest jokes-spilling sticky liquids on his head, spell- ing him to stumble in public, making him swallow potions that would make him pee in his pants-he just stared at me in the chorus of laughter and asked:

"Is it over, Potter?"

And it made me hate it even more.

Thus we had spent the last five years of our lives, from our first and unhappy contact. But in the middle of the second year of our deep enmity, I discovered the worst of the jokes. The only curse bad enough to make him really hate me: Lilly Evans.

Lilly, the irritated and smart girl with the red hair and beautiful that reached in the middle of the back.

  
Evans was beautiful, popular, sociable; Severus, the loneliest person in the entire Hogwarts school. But she was his only friend-the only real friendship he could afford to cultivate. And although Lilly sees him as a good friend, my intuition has indicated to me from the beginning that Severus' intentions went further.

He liked her. He really wanted to touch her red hair and have them all for himself. The instant I realized that, my jealous nature decided: I would like her too. But it was not a conscious process.

For many years, I myself believed that my sentiment for Lilly was sincere. It was only when I reached my fifth - and current year - that I realized that it was not quite what was happening. The first clue happened in Defense Against the Dark Arts class.

"A Patron ..." said Professor Flitwick, who until then taught that subject. "It can be conjured from the happiest memory you have. It does not have to be a real memory, just be sincere, and concentrate on it as much as possible. The Patron will take the form of a silver animal and will be a source of great protection . "

By now I suspected the true nature of my strange relationship with Ranthos. I noticed that it so much that I had been watching him in some free moments, when even my friends were close to me. Because of this, I already knew that Severus had managed to conjure a Patronus; something that seemed simply impossible to me. His Patron was a doe.

I tried to focus on a happy memory. I had many.

My family was one of the richest families of wizards, all pure-blooded, which meant that i had not been through many difficulties and suffered many kinds of prejudice throughout their lives. However, a really happy memory. A memory of complete and absolute happiness ... How to find it? It seemed to me unlikely that I could do it.

"You can," said Remus, always trying to comfort me. "Think of the day you received the letter from Hogwarts."

"Think of the day of your best birthday, or when we became Animagos," Peter whispered, making his attempt.

"Think of the first day we laughed at Snotty' face," Sirius suggested.

That last suggestion was like a lamp burning in my mind. Snotty? Think about the first day I'd made a joke to bother him? Yeah. Looked good. But ... Maybe, not good enough. I took that as a basic image; then I began to manipulate it.  
Me doing a prank ... Yes. And he falling into the prank? Yes. So, he was getting mad at me, and ... No. No, that was no longer a good feeling. Snape could not be mad at me. Maybe ... Laugh with me?  
Laugh? I had never seen him smile at all, let alone a laugh. That was absolutely beyond my reach. But ... Imagining it was possible.  
Anyway, I started to manipulate it. When I realized, the scene already involved i and Severus planning a joke together; applying it to any Slytherin; and, in followed, laughing at that Slytherin's face. An image so simple and, at the same time, so impossible. Impossible enough to give me a short moment of intense happiness. In the next instant, the Patronus was conjured.

A doe.

"I do not believe it, I do not believe it!" Peter shouted, pointing to the silver animal jumping from side to side.

Sirius laughed and applauded, disbelieving at the sight. Remus kept his eyes wide in the direction of the spell, also disbelieving what his eyes told him.

"A ... " he murmured, also pointing. "You ... really like her, do not you?"

At that moment, I, a very surprised teenager who was surprised by his own witchcraft potential, was completely bewildered. I, a young idiot who very lost in your thoughts for a brief second, surrendered. Not just for them, but for myself.

"Who is she?" I asked.

Three pairs of confused eyes turned to me.

"Like who, James!" asked Remo. "Lily! Her patron is a doe, too!"

My gaping mouth showed how surprised I was with my own idiocy.

"Did not you know?"

I swallowed hard. How could I be so dumb?

"I ... Of course i did!" I answered quickly, arranging the Gryffindor cloak I wore. They tried disguise, but those three did not seem convinced. "Of course ... My Patron is a deer because of Lily's!"

So, the three of us became the Hogwarts doe. Lily with an one authentically his Patron; Severus with a Patron who imitated hers; and me with one that imitated his. A roller coaster of unrequited feelings, short and unhappy, doomed to failure.

As time went on, my situation worsened. I realized that what I felt about Snape was not just a hodgepodge of hate, but a kind of obsession developed by people who love each other - and in the wrong way. So my conclusions led me to a certain destination: I moved away from him. It was necessary. 

During the last months of the fifth year, for the first time since I had entered Hogwarts, I gave the Ranhoso peace. I did not pursue him, tying his shoelaces to one another; i did not mock him any more, fixing nicknames or bewitching him to float in public; i did not throw his notebooks on the floor so he had to join them later. For the last four months of that year, I had not acted like James Potter.

My belief was that if I stepped away from him and did not feed that vicious cycle any more, I would be free too. But it got worse. It worsened, because other things changed along with my attitude.

All my life, Lily had rejected me, rightly so. She thought I was an idiot - what I was, in fact - by the games and the fact that I acted myself the king at that school, which always made my situation easier and fed my motives to continue as I was. After all, I was a bully with an unrequited love, needy, who did everything to attract the attention of others. But now I was no longer playing games or disturbing the peace. So Lily turned her gaze upon me, moving me further away from my true purpose. Snape, who once hated me just as an enemy, began to hate me as if his life were simply to end mine.

The situation has become unsustainable. Increasingly, I was forced to stage about being in love with her, and more and more Snape detested me. Now, we reached the apex: the Hogwarts Ball. The exact moment when my story began; my current situation.

It was not obligatory to have a date to go to the ball, actually. All students from the fifth year on were invited to attend and could be present as long as they wanted to attend. Remus Lupine and Sirius Black, for example, had no official pair- mainly because they were their peers. So they went alone, and there, at the party, they they would find a way to stay of getting together without raising a lot of curious glances. As for me, I had invited Lily. And she had accepted.

Severus was not going to the ball, I knew that. For two main reasons: first, he was an introspective son of a bitch who did not give in to those events; second, because Lily, the girl of her dreams, would be with me. Your worst enemy. I was one step away from fooling them and myself, consecrating me as the greatest asshole in the Wizarding World. But that day I had a little of courage. On that day, I would do differently.

Now I was descending the stairs of the school, heading to the Courtyard of the Clock Tower. I was looking for Severus because I needed to talk to him. For the first time in my life, I had to be honest, because I could not tolerate those circumstances any longer. It was his that Lily originally liked, not me; it was with him that she should go to the ball, and just was not doing it because he had not invited her. I had.

As always, I had to ruin his plans; but now all I wanted was to be a part of them. It was with him that I would like to go to the ball if I could. And if he could not go with me, let him go with her in my place.

When I finally reached my destination, I almost froze at the touch of cold air. The courtyard was open, adorned with a fountain and bird statues surrounding it. Snow fell on all sides, blurring my vision and giving shivers. Even though it was late afternoon, it seemed to be late at night.

My clothing-a thin, starched suit that had nothing to do with my style-was not even enough to cover all the necessary parts of my body. If I stayed there for more than five minutes, in those outfits, I would have a hypothermia or something. But when those thoughts struck me, I saw him.

I glimpsed Snape in the falling snow.

The figure, dark and slender, was behind a distant pillar. The last of the pillars of the courtyard, a few meters from the Clock Tower.

Snape's back was to me, but his gaze seemed to be ahead, in the sky. I took courage to approach him for the last time. I breathed a breath, a whitish smoke into the air.

"Hey, Snotty!" I screamed, as if I really had some morals to still call him that way.

Snape did not hear me. Or he pretended not to hear me. He remained on his back, his gaze far away. All that was visible, beyond the long, dark cloak that reached the ground, were the silky hair that beat on the neck. If I had the chance to choose a single forbidden thing to touch life - without being killed in sequence - I would have chosen those hairs.

With quick steps I approached him. When I got close enough, I tried one more time, this time at low volume. The proximity to him made me feel strange.

"Hey ... Snape ..."

"What do you _want_ here?"

I fumbled at the answer. Suddenly it was as if I no longer knew what I was doing there. His voice was serious, but it had a velvety touch that caressed my ears. Did I really want to do that?

It took me so long in the reply that he bothered. He turned his head slightly, looking at me over his shoulders.

"I need to talk to you," I tried hesitantly.

He turned his back on me.

"If you've come to do some of your idiotic games, know that I'm not going to fall for any."

"I will not do it."

"I do not believe you."

I bit my lip. To be without a wand near Severus was risky. Very dangerous.

He hated me and was skilled in spells; perhaps, the most gifted student of that school. Still, if I did not prove that I was there with good intentions, I would not have the chance to talk to him. What choice did I have? Betting on my unlikely chances of getting out of there unharmed, I pulled my wand out of my robes and threw it away.

He fell into a heap of snow two or three yards from me. I was unarmed, in front of a brilliant Slytherin, who really hated me.

At that moment, he seemed to reconsider the situation. Severus turned around and finally stood facing me. And I really got scared of what I saw.

Over the five years we'd been at that school, I'd grown accustomed to the flawless image Severus had always had. He was not only an incredible student and a gifted wizard, but his robes also carried meticulously buttoned buttons and the dark strands of the hair were invariably always seated. Snape had pale skin, but he had no dark circles under his eyes.

He was the type who slept early and woke up early. He had the breads and eggs for breakfast in the same exact position. He would always sit in the same damn wallet, even if we did not have places in the room. In short: he was obsessed. But that day, Snape had dark circles under his eyes.

Her hair was not set. The vest buttons under were not meticulously buttoned.

For the first time in his life, Snape did not look scary. He looked just ... Fragile.

I shuddered at the thought. I tried to deviate from that reasoning, or it would end before it even started. I forced myself to divert my eyes to some corner, however much my real desire was to pull it at me. Before that, I noticed that he did not look at me either.

"S-Snape, I ... Go with Lily to the ball. Go with her. I can not go."  
   
"Because?" he murmured.

Even his voice, once so incisive, was now a delicate thread filling the air.

"P-Because ... Why, why ..."

I tried to find a way to say that. Nothing there was in my favor. I was freezing, my reasoning was slow, all my will spoke against my actions. Suddenly, another attitude of surprise surprised me.

"You are you cold?"

I thought I'd choke on my own saliva, but I restrained myself. Was he making fun of me?

I stared wide-eyed at him, intent on finding an answer that made sense. But, with black eyes still low, without looking back at me, he did not seem to be in a position of debauchery. Maybe ... Had even noticed i was with cold? Maybe he was worried about me?

I felt sorry for myself for considering that. Snape hated me, how could he be worried? But was. The bastard was.

He put her hands on the Slytherin's scarf, slowly pulling. At that moment, I realized: he wanted to lend it to me.

"No," I interrupted, nodding. "No need."

He smiled faintly in my direction.

"If it was red, you'd take it."

"Is not it..."

"Do not be a liar, Potter," he snapped, insisting on extending the scarf in my direction. "You hate the Slytherins, do not you? That's why I want to see you wearing it."

I blinked my eyes, confused. I could not be understanding that right. It was not possible. Even so, I tried to believe. Since when did Snape and I begin to lie to ourselves? For an instant my nearly frozen chest warmed, and I still had not accepted the scarf. I considered the possibility.

As much as I did, he might have been lying, making excuses for acting or thinking the way he did. Wanting to see me dressed in a Slytherin scarf? Unlikely. There was no one there to attest that I had actually done that. The real reason had to be something else: he was worried I'd be cold. It was the only explanation.

The next moment, I was wearing a striped scarf in green and silver tones, with a snake insignia on one end. Severus looked pleased, and so was I. It was not just the cold that got better, but his scarf also exhaled its scent.

A woody smell, but also a bit sweet, that left me a little out of orbit. Something strange was happening there.

"In the last four months, you must have been very busy."

I frowned, doubtful. My reasoning seemed not to follow.

"You stopped chasing me," he explained. The tone was one of hurt. And I could not answer. "You really should have forgotten me."

I had chased him for five consecutive years, throwing things in his head and causing him to stumble, but in the only four months I had stayed away, Severus seemed to have missing sense the nuisance I caused.

I knew what answer to give. I just could not do it. As usual, he concluded that he knew what I was thinking.

"Do us both a favor, Potter. Go to that ball. Go right away and leave me alone."

Saying this, he simply turned his back on me and headed inside the Clock Tower, which was just over five paces away. He, alone, finalized a dialogue.

He left me alone in the snow, with a suspicious scarf around his neck, his head more doubtful than he had ever been. I would not go fucking ball. I would not, until I could really get it all clean.

Until finally I could find out what were Severus' true intentions behind those attitudes - and, if they were the intentions I imagined, I would want more is for the ball to explode.

I ran into the Clock Tower.

The interior of the tower was a wide, dark place. There was almost no furniture, which made the smallest of the peals echo in all directions. Even so, there was a small set of rather derelict furniture, which included two sofas and two armchairs, a misaligned coffee table, a burned-out fireplace in one corner. There were no lamps, so that the only light that came to us was the natural one-a little scarce, because the day was already gone as a whole.

Snape was, of course, in front of the unlit fireplace. It seemed that he always chose to position himself as far from the entrance as if he did not want to be disturbed. But I would bother him until the end of time, until I knew what was going on there.

"You're not really going to leave, are you?" he said, and the velvety voice echoed.

By now, after so many clues, I could already feel the Gryffindor's courage pulsating again in my veins; which could be somewhat problematic. Even if all the evidence pointed to the fact that Snape liked me-or, at least, he missed me-it was quite obvious that he still did not want me around. But I was persistent.

Again, with quick footsteps him I approached and not saying a single word. This time, however, I had not felt the threatening tone that voice was making. When I approached until a few inches separated us, he acted. He turned in my direction, the dark wand already directed at my neck, making me stop. I did not expect that. He was about to attack me and I would have no chance to defend myself, since I was still unarmed; even if I had any chance, I probably would not defend myself.

"Stay away," he murmured. He pointed the wand at the same spot on my body where he had put on a scarf. At the same time that he seemed to want protect me himself, at any moment, he also seemed to want to attack me. But that still would not be enough for me to lose my confidence.

Few people in the world were blindly confident as James Potter.

"Or what?" I asked, provocatively. None of us seemed to believe that he would have the courage.

As much as his hands were wrapped around his wand-and she was even at a very critical part of my body-his eyes did not showed his usual contempt. His eyes showed no more hatred. Perhaps they were afraid; caution. Severus Snape was afraid of my approach, the dark spheres fallen and fixed at some point on the floor. Without any self-confidence, the exact opposite of me.

"Or what, Snape? What are you going to do?"

Black eyes, saddened, finally looked for mine. As much as I did, there was something he wanted to tell me, but he could not. I could not either. I had not been getting it all those years. But now, as I saw in his eyes the same sadness that glowed in mine, my doubts vanished. They disappeared completely.

Sensitized by the look he threw me, I lost the provocative pose. I lost my aggressive posture. We had both lost, but we were still waiting to announce an official loser. The loser, of course, was me.

Regardless of the fact that now he really had a pretext to attack me, I stepped forward, betting on luck: I touched the dark hair. As soon as I felt the smooth wires slip through my hands, the woody scent released him and filled the air, leaving me more fluttered.

The touch did not seem to bother him. On the contrary: when he felt my hands wandering through his dark strands, he inclined his head in the opposite direction, but let out a low sigh. The wand, of course, did not bow. Still, for the first time in my life, he was letting me touch him.

A touch so soft, that I seemed to be touching a heap of feathers.

  
"Potter ..."

"I already know ..." I murmured, drunk with the situation. I had already taken too many steps that day. "I'll ... But first, I need to tell you ..."

"I'm not going in your place," he answered, and now his voice was already a troubled whisper.

I wanted to get my ears closer to listen to him better, but the situation would not allow it. My legs were quivering more than when I had arrived, and this time I did not feel cold.

How many more chances would I have to say that? How many more times would he allow me to get so close? There was no way. I had already understood the situation; therefore, he would do as he wished. I would leave, as long as I could accomplish my only purpose there. That was the time.

I sighed. It was my turn to turn my eyes to the ground, because I could not bear to face his reaction from the front.

"I like you," I finally murmured. "I've liked you since the first time we saw each other. I've liked you since we crashed on the Hogwarts Express and their briefcases fell to the ground."

There was no response. I did not know what expression he was doing because I refused to look at him. But something told me that he was really in shock at my statement.

"But I know the time to go. I'm going with Lily to the ball, but I'll tell her the truth."

Taking a few steps back, I pulled away. Now that I had said all I needed, I was ready to leave. But I did not leave.

Pale hands gripped the end of the scarf I wore, even before I turned my back.

"Please wait..."

The murmur was still sorrow. It must have been painful to hear, after five years of torture, that deep down I had always liked him. Maybe it was easier to leave things as they were-it was much easier, much less sad to think that I had only hated him for all that time. Even so he would not let me go. The wand, at last, lowered itself.

My muscles stiffened and my breathing automatically became unstable when, instead of attacking me, he approached. He approached until there was almost no distance between us. Now his warm breath was already beating on my neck, but his face was too low for me to look at him.

I could not. I could not more endure it.

Instinctively, doing the only thing I could, I used my fingers to pry up her jaw a little, so that her face would rise as well, staying within my reach. The deep eyes looked at me in fear, but at the same time they asked me to stay.

Before I could reason as little as I could and realize what I was about to do, my lips joined his. I could not pay attention to anything else.

My movement had been abrupt, because I had waited for that moment for centuries. But despite always seeming to be so bitter, his lips were so sweet and so soft that what I felt was a kind of shock. Snape reacted; only that he did not back away.

Fine fingers sought the back of my neck, joining us more, and the mouth immediately gave way for me to enter. I did not pay attention to the explosive state in which my heart was, because I did not want to pay attention to anything but him. There was something about him that was not normal.

Something like one thin liquid that flowed from his mouth and filled mine, making me inebriate. Maybe it was same a snake and even had some kind of poison. A very psychotropic substance, because I was already losing my limits. My arms were already wrapped around his waist, pulling him closer. If it were a deadly poison, I would have chosen to die right there.

The icy hands contrasted with my heated skin. I was really in a fucking boil. A few steps from having a really losing any trace of notion I had left. My fingers also pulled at my hair, and in that instant I realized that he gasped as much as I did. As much as I, he also throbbed.

I took a few steps forward, causing him to draw back a few. We were headed toward one of the poorly laid out sofas. What the fuck were we doing, I did not know. I just knew I'd never had that chance, and I could not let her escape for anything in the world.

Severus allowed me to push him to the couch. I leaned over him, holding his hair once again, feeling his breath racing over his lips. I was far from sated. After such a long waiting period, I would not stop until I sucked the last drop of the addictive and maddening substance it he released about me. But it was at that time, with him already sitting on the couch and I already with one knee on the cushion, fully bent over it, that the damn tower clock made us wake up from our trance.

The clock in the tower rang loudly, indicating that it was already six o'clock. Such was the force of his sound that all the elements inside the tower vibrated, including me and the Slytherin below me. We both stopped with the fright, returning to harsh reality with a thud.

Six o'clock in the afternoon indicated the time for the Hogwarts Ball. Lily would probably already be waiting for me. But of all the times I'd thought about the event in disgust, this time was the worst.

I looked at him again, before I even had enough time to recover from what had happened.

  
His face, always so pale, had red spots concentrated on his cheeks. The eyes that once expressed fear looked at me now only as if they could not believe what had happened. I was also without reaction.

A wave of embarrassment hovered over us-not as if we were repenting, but only because we were not sure how to act at that moment.

Then the black irises turned to some corner, and he murmured,

"Go after her."

"No," I whispered immediately, in despair. I shook my head, because all I did not want was to have to leave him and go after Lily. "I want to stay here with you."

 _please, please_ do _not_ tell me to go with her, do not send me _away, please, please_

Snape smiled discreetly, still not looking at me. It was so rare to see him smile, even though your smile was a little one small, suddenly that I did not know for a moment about everything else. I did not want to go to the damn prom, because I wanted to spend the rest of the night with him. The rest of his phrase changed everything else.

"Go after her ... To say that you will not accompany her. I'll wait for you here."

I thought I heard wrong.

It was my turn to stare at him in disbelief. Was he serious?

Snape stifled a low laugh with my reaction - a laugh. Severus Snape was stifling a laugh.

I smiled too automatically. It seemed too good to be real, but I was more convinced every second that it could not be a dream. Nor do I have such a disturbed mind to dream of such surreal scenes; therefore, it had to be true.

"Is this ... serious?"

He had not only assumed that he had missed me, as he accepted as and corresponded to my kiss. Now Severus was indirectly inviting me to miss the prom to spend some time with him. If it were up to me, that time would be the rest of the night.

"As long as you do not delay so long, Potter ..." was the ironic answer. However, the discreet smile was still in my direction, indicating to me that he spoke in a good mood.

My chest, which had grown colder with the possibility of me leaving it, was warm again. I answered:

"I'll go back before you can say ' _Quidditch_ '

Saying that, I finally I left from above him.

As I headed for the tower door, he looked suspiciously at the handkerchief I carried. But I just put it even more firmly around my neck, without any desire to return it.

I would leave the Clock Tower and pass through the halls of Hogwarts, probably being seen by many students; but still ... Still, getting away from that smell was the last of the my plans. When the time came, i would find a way to hide it or go unnoticed. I was still James Potter.

I left the tower even faster than I had entered, because I did not want to miss a single second of it. I knew I would have plenty of time to warn Lily and go back to find him, but it did not matter anymore. The anxiety was so great that my legs would run alone through the courtyard and the corridors while that scarf was still on my neck.

I would run, because I could not get out of my head the dark eyes, the discreet smile, the soft touch of the lips I had just tasted. I had hardly separated from Severus, but I could not wait to see him again; to have him again, so close to me.

This time, no kidding. No masks, no pretenses. I would just be me and he would just be him, and everything would be all right. Just as I had been dreaming for the last five years of our lives.

 

**Author's Note:**

> For a dear friend! I hope you enjoy!


End file.
